[TYPO3] How to access TYPO3 functions from my Extension

[Stephen Bungert]

Hallo,

I have extended tt_news with 3 new fields - we are using the news ext to
list events that we have organiesd. Now the sponsors oft he Event's want a
logo and link with the article. 

I used the extension news_author_rel as a starting point as this extended
tt_news already. As in news_author_rel, my ext doesn't have a pi1 folder,
just a php file that tt_news calls whenlooking at the extraItemMarkerHooks.
I then process my new markers.

It all works great, the sponsor logo is there and the link, but I would like
to maybe use a template or local language files but I can't.

Is it possible to extend pibase like a normal extension? If so how? I tried
saying my class extends pibase and then I could read the local language
file, but the BE got screwed up and I had to delete the cache from
localconfig before I could login tot he backend again.

PS: Thanks everyone for there help! I've learned so much about TYPO3 since
September, but some things are still difficult to understand!